"We don't want to reinvent the wheel”

In January 2025, the European University Alliance EUonAIR was launched. Fourteen have joined this European research and science alliance to advance the topic of Artificial Intelligence in education, business, and society through innovative learning, research, and working methods. The alliance is also working on future-oriented smart solutions for cities. EUonAIR is funded as part of the lighthouse initiative European Universities 2024 with a total of €14.4 million over four years. The Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW Berlin University of Applied Sciences) is the only university from Berlin participating. More about the current implementation status of EUonAIR and the role of HTW Berlin in the European alliance tells us Brain City Ambassador Prof. Dr. Florian Koch, spokesperson of the research cluster “Sustainable Smart Cities” at HTW Berlin.

Prof. Dr. Koch, the goal of the EUonAIR alliance is to strengthen the topic of Artificial Intelligence in education, business, and society. A lofty ambition …

It’s actually impossible to fully achieve. That’s why we asked ourselves: What added value can HTW Berlin bring to the alliance as a university of applied sciences? Our students are already using AI and will need it in their future careers. The question is: How do we as a university respond to this? We don’t aim to train all students to become computer scientists, but basic AI competence is now important in all degree programs. EUonAIR’s approach is to consider how AI can be integrated into teaching. That’s also the area HTW Berlin has taken on in the alliance project. For example, we’re looking at what existing offerings for teaching AI are available and whether open teaching materials so-called Open Educational Resources can be developed from them. We then test these in courses and hope to apply the materials directly in teaching.

So there is a division of responsibilities within the alliance. Which university is responsible for what?

Kozminski University in Warsaw has taken over project management. The Warsaw team is also responsible for building the virtual campus “MyAI University” within EUonAIR. This platform will later host all EUonAIR offerings. The Luxembourg School of Business is in charge of communication. We work closely with the private Universitat Abat Oliba CEU in Barcelona, which is primarily responsible for the Smart City topic. So each partner has a main area of responsibility. However, the basic idea is that everyone contributes to everything.

Another goal of EUonAIR is to develop and implement innovative mobility solutions. How does this affect HTW Berlin?

The topic of Mobility is managed by Kozminski University in Poland, but universities from Lithuania and Ukraine are also involved. It’s about creating attractive conditions for professionals who were trained in England, Germany, or France, for example, to return to their home labour markets. This topic is less relevant for Germany. But what’s exciting for us at HTW Berlin is exploring how students can gain international experience even if they lack the funds for a semester abroad or are otherwise tied to their location. This could be organized through international online exchanges, for instance.

You already mentioned the alliance’s central platform “MyAI University.” What will happen there?

MyAI University will immersively integrate all EUonAIR activities. A fun detail: the buildings of the partner universities will be recreated on the campus so that users can enter them virtually and attend courses there. There will also be avatars of some professors who can deliver content in all languages. This is currently being developed. However, no teaching content has been uploaded to the platform yet.

What other goals does EUonAIR pursue beyond promoting AI in education? The website lists various approaches.

One such goal in the area of mobility is that in the future, 50 percent of all students will have gained international experience. We are therefore aiming for a certain number of open courses. These should be freely accessible as Open Educational Resources. In the Smart Cities area, which is my core topic, we want to establish so-called Smart University Labs. Where exactly these will be located is still undecided and depends on the added value each partner university offers to its surrounding city.

Will the labs also be open to civil society?

We’re pursuing two different approaches here: On the one hand, we’re looking at which labs already exist in a city. In Berlin, for example, there’s already CityLAB Berlin or the Urban Tech Republic being developed on the site of the former Tegel Airport. That means we don’t need to reinvent the wheel but rather explore what cooperation opportunities are already available. On the other hand, we want to create physical or virtual spaces where we can convey research on AI. These will be open to civil society. Companies can also approach us with ideas they want to implement together with students.

Can you already name any implementation examples at HTW Berlin?

We first conducted a survey for Berlin and then set up a physical space at HTW Berlin. There, we want to show our students what already exists in the Smart City field in Berlin and where opportunities arise. Additionally, we have technical tools on-site to demonstrate how they work and are applied. One example is sensors that measure and visualize traffic or heat. Thematically, we’re quite broadly positioned. In cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), we’re organizing a hackathon soon. It will focus on the cross-cutting topic of data usage. What we’ll do next year is still open. Currently, we’re in talks with a Berlin housing company to organize a hackathon for 2026 together.

So the labs are essentially about enabling?

Exactly. As I said, we don’t want to reinvent the wheel and also look at what Berlin-based companies already offer to solve specific problems. Most Smart City tools now have an AI component.

How is Universitat Abat Oliba in Barcelona, as the lead for the Smart City area, involved in the labs?

Barcelona is tasked with networking the various labs. So far, there’s one in Barcelona, one in Paris, and one here in Berlin. One idea is that the winning teams of this year’s hackathons in Paris, Barcelona, and Berlin will travel together to the Smart City Expo in Barcelona in 2026 and be honored again there. The added value comes from international exchange.

What advantages does Berlin offer the EUonAIR alliance, and why is HTW Berlin one of only two German universities involved – alongside Hochschule Heilbronn?

On the one hand, a lot is already happening in Berlin in the Smart City field. As mentioned, we already have labs with specific orientations that are both civil society-oriented and tied to Berlin’s unique challenges. Additionally, Berlin has a large Smart City ecosystem with many actors, including innovative start-ups and companies. So in Berlin, the question isn’t where to start, but rather how to bring everything together. What Berlin still lacks, however, is a link to education. There is no Smart City degree program in Berlin only individual modules or the research cluster “Sustainable Smart Cities” that I oversee. EUonAIR offers HTW Berlin an exciting opportunity to position itself as a future-oriented university. We can use it to test what we need to integrate into teaching in the future. We want to make these experiences accessible to others as well. That’s the idea behind it.

Interview: Ernestine von der Osten-Sacken

• euonair.eu
• HTW project European University on AI in Curricula, Smart UniverCity and (Return)Mobility (EUonAIR)